47 dangerous old playgrounds that our great-grandparents somehow survived - Click Americana (2024)

55 Responses

1. It’s interesting though when you look at all the children in the photos they are all smiling! I grew up with metal slides and steel jungle gyms and I was just fine. This article should be about the history of the playground, not your own opinion of how dangerous you “think” they were. You probably weren’t even there, so how would you know. You just took a bunch of old photos of kids playing happily and turned it into an article of “complaint”. Shame on you. As a reporter you are not supposed to be subjective, only objective.

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   1. Thanks for your feedback, and I’m sorry you didn’t like this article content.

      First, though, it’s important to note that on this site, I am not a news reporter — I am a curator, editor, feature writer, and historical researcher. As such, I am entitled to an opinion.

      Yes, many of the kids are smiling, and no doubt were having a lot of fun! But that doesn’t negate the premise of the story. It’s a fact — not just what I think — that many injuries were caused by old playground equipment. How would I know? I did a lot of research, and also spent plenty of time on hot slides and huge jungle gyms. I do think, however, that there is a reason playground safety has evolved over time (although, of course, injuries still happen today).

      This article may be worth a skim: The Fallacy of the ‘I Turned Out Fine’ Argument: You didn’t use seatbelts when you were growing up and you lived to tell about it? That doesn’t make it a good parenting strategy.

      I agree that an article about the history of the playground would be a good thing to have on the site — but that is not what this story was intended to be. This piece was meant to be a lighthearted look back — with an introduction and conclusion that made my own perspectives clear.

      And while I appreciate your perspective, and hear your argument, I absolutely do not appreciate you telling me “shame on you.” I have done nothing remotely shameful, and honestly don’t understand why you’re so angry at a stranger about an article topic that may have some degree of personal meaning to you, but is not actually about you or your choices, past or present.

      – Nancy Price, founder/owner/editor/writer/creator – ClickAmericana.com

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      1. To be fair, playgrounds changed because of a lawsuit in the early 70s. And there’s a lot of research to indicate that the current plastic playgrounds are actually stifling childhood creativity because they’re so “canned” (you can drive across the country and note that most of the playgrounds are the same five or so “models” made by the same few companies).

      2. Great article! I thoroughly enjoyed sharing this with a friend. The photos made us reminisce and laugh about some good times on “questionable” pieces of the equipment from our own hometown playgrounds.

      3. Best response ever! Your article was extremely well-researched and well-written. It wasn’t a huge “downer” nor did it dwell exclusively on the negative aspects of the equipment; it was well-balanced but, of course, being that it is a piece about DANGEROUS equipment, is going to discuss **dangerous** equipment.
         To attempt to shame someone for having an opinion is ridiculous! Just like you said, this article wasn’t about OP and doesn’t effect her. Furthermore, just because something makes someone appear happy doesn’t make it “safe”. Heroin, for example, commonly produces very euphoric effects in it’s users; were you to write a piece on the dangers of heroin, I hardly doubt readers would admonish you for minimizing the joy experienced by addicts as doing so would be rather ludacrus!! Just saying!

         Thanks again for a great article.

   2. Wow

      So because “YOU” played on this equipment and were ‘just fine’, EVERYONE who played on it walked away uninjured? Sorry lady, just because it didn’t happen to you, or in front of you, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen fairly regularly to others.

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      Shame on YOU, miss know-it-all.

      Also, if you didn’t like the subject matter, feel free to write an article that is more pleasing to you. Don’t be surprised however, if the comments section is full of people talking about how dangerous that old equipment was.

      You might even get someone who disagrees with your subject matter and strongly thinks your article should be about all the injuries kids suffered from playing on that old equipment.

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      1. The playground equipment taught us to be more thoughtful and to think at least one step ahead. A broken bone or strained muscle served as a leaning tool for the next time we were on the structure. Those jungle gyms taught us about the values and dangers of freedom.

         I’m happy to enjoy my tasty, entre of liberty, served upon a pewter platter, alongside a condiment dish of absolute treachery.

      2. Sorry, Ronald, in the words of the immortal Brad Upton, “Know what happened to the dumb ones? They didn’t make it.”

         Natural selection was alive and well until it began being gradually legislated away in the 1970s.

         Just be glad you slipped through the cracks.

      3. I am 80 years young, we used to play on this playground equipment and sure there were a few injuries, usually minor, but we simply got past ti and were ready to go back on the equipment, we weren’t scared of our shadow, and babied like kids are today, and parents, and teachers did not freak out over minor things like they do today! We also received spankings from the Principle if we did something bad enough to get sent to the office, and we were assigned homework, and the curriculum was much more indepth than it is today!

   3. I grew up with those also,they were great fun. Surely better than teaching kids to have fun playing on a computer doing video games.

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2. Great compilation! Well done, and very interesting to read. I stumbled on this when looking into a piece of vintage playground equipment that myself and others were discussing on a Facebook group for our hometown. We had always called it “the ding dongs” but I see it is actually called a “Giant Stride.” It was there until maybe the early 1980s, along with metal baby swings that must have weighed 20lbs each! Survival of the fittest I guess…

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3. This article was great! I run a memory program for aging seniors and they LOVE to talk about the playgrounds from the old days. They often say with a smile, “I don’t know how we survived.” The heights. The burning slides. They survived and so did the boomers after. And we even drank water from the garden hose.

   Thank you!

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   1. My father built a giant stride for me in my backyard. Late 1950s early 1960s. One of my favorite childhood memories. My teenage brothers would push me so high my feet were horizontal to the ground. I remember having the rope break more than once, landing face down and getting all the wind knocked out of me. I would be right back at it again once I caught my breath. No serious injuries. Why was it considered so dangerous? I agree that outside play taught you self reliance. Video games can’t do that. Kids are overprotected today. We think the world is more dangerous now, but really it’s just more publicized. I was punished by being grounded. I punish my grandchildren by putting them outside. They are mostly afraid to leave the yard.

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4. Fun set of pictures, thanks! I’d love to see the 50s-70s offerings, too. Still dangerous, but smaller, single sets, not these big communal ones.

   With 7 kids in my family growing up on the equipment we had only 2 ER injuries, my older brother falling off the monkey bars and breaking an arm at 5, and me breaking a nose at 7 by flying off a 60s swing set glider (riding it on my belly). I always wonder why we pass around the, “your grandparents didn’t need seatbelts” meme. You can survive serious burns, doesn’t mean they’re safe.

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5. I grew up with these playgrounds and certainly survived–but looking at them now–wow! I do think kids are too wrapped up in bubble wrap today. Skinned knees and bruises only last a while.

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6. I remember the jungle gym in the first grade, at lease once a week this one girl would hang upside down about six off the ground. All girls wore skirts to school then, the teachers would freak, take her inside, give her a couple of swats and make her stay inside for the rest of the day. To me the staying inside was the worst part, but then the next week she would do it again.

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7. It is hard to believe children would get very much exercise on the “plastic” equipment pictured above let alone have much fun. When it was very hot, we sat on an old towel or rag of some sort and to keep it slick we sat on a waxy bread wrapper or some waxed paper before sliding down. Would that work on the “plastic” slide to make it slicker?
   I loved the merry-go-round, (even when I fell while pushing it), and the swings. They were flat boards, on long chains, that you could jump from at the apex of your swing. And a teeter-totter was as much fun to walk, or run, up and then down, as it was to actually use it correctly.
   When the girls hung by their knees on a bar no one could see anything but clothing. I entered school at age 5, in 1939, and most girls in the country school wore bloomers made out of flour sacks. Covered as much as shorts under dresses do now. No slacks then. At age 85 I still enjoy most of the modern day carnival rides but the swing sets on playgrounds are not comfortable because of the type of seats they have.
   I found this article because I am doing research for my memoirs encompassing 1934 through 2020. It is slow going, but interesting to be reminded of so much.

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   1. Just wanted to say your comment sounds very cool. I believe my grandmother was born five years after you but I never got the chance to hear many stories about her childhood because she died of heart disease in 2014. But it’s cool to hear about these sort of things every now and then because I’m really curious of what it was like to use those playgrounds. I’m 18 as of now, but they look fun!

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8. HAHAHAHA! O dear Lord those playgrounds were killer! I remember nearly getting horizontal and using centrifugal force it’s amazing no one was killed, do recall a few injuries. We had a blast had no idea the danger we were exposed to…and yes, drinking from water hoses!! Tail end of the BOOMERS here am so glad I didnt miss the adventure! Outstanding photos! Have been trying to explain the chain ladders circling the pole ( were rope ladders in the Chicago Park District in the ’60’s) to my children they could NOT imagine anyone allowing those! (Millenniums lol)

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9. LATE 1970’S//EARLY TO MID 1980’S WOOD LOG PLAYGROUNDS WERE COOL …BETTER THEN THE HIGH TEC FANCY ONES THAY HAVE IN-TODAYS WORLD.

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   1. The big problem with wood log play equipment is that it rots within a relatively short period of time — making it not only dangerous and unstable, but expensive to repair. It’s even worse if the wood is cheap and not cured properly.

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10. This article was so fun to read and I love the pictures! Thanks! I was trying to describe 21 and 22 to my kids and to my surprise I was spot-on with the description when I found the pictures here. I was laughing because on my birthday park outing I got hit in the forehead with the end of one of these and vividly remember the goose egg. Still my most favorite memories are from that park and especially that swing. I had 5 big brothers so I am sure I flew plenty!!

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11. Thank you for the pictures. There is some research showing that contemporary playgrounds are so “safe” that children are injured trying to eke out risk from them. Risky play is important for child development. Certainly, we don’t want to go back in time to the unsupervised barrel but neither do we want to insulate children from all risk-or fun. At “Adventure Playgrounds” the goal is: “as safe as necessary” not “as safe as possible.” This an idea that is more conducive to learning.

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    1. Yes! It sounds like we read the same research on Adventure Playgrounds!

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12. KIds were definitely stronger and tougher back then. Eventually modern playgrounds will be little more than big piles of pillows.

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    1. Pillows so they can lay there and stare into their phone.

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13. Do you go outside? Many of these still exist where I live (Australia), and many countries I’ve visited. The ones that I don’t see now definitely existed when I was a kid 15 years ago. Quit trying to be ultra dramatic and pretend it’s so foreign.

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    1. Do I go outside? Why, yes. Yes, I do. And while the title may be slightly dramatic, many of these do NOT exist here in the US anymore, and haven’t for at least 25 years. Since this site is all about Americana, it seems fair enough to reflect the history and perspectives of Americans, does it not?

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    2. This site is Click Americana which clearly implies (well, actually, it STATES DIRECTLY) that the site is about AMERICAN culture.
       I’ve “gone outside” every single day for 41 years – that’s over 15,000 days – and have never, not even ONCE seen any equipment like this! My mother, who is in her early 70’s, has gone outside over 30,000K days and she has never once seen equipment like this either.

       Why is that? Because we are AMERICAN! We don’t have this type of playground equipment in America so it’s not simply a matter of “not going outside”.

       While YOU may have seen such playground equipment, many of us have not because we are in the USA, and it hasn’t existed here, for the most part, in decades. It isn’t “being dramatic” to state we don’t have this type of playground equipment here, in AMERICA, the only country this site is relevant to – it is simply a fact that those pieces aren’t used here and haven’t been since the late 1930’s except for few and far between. Get over your rude, condescending, self-righteous self….not everything is about YOU!!!

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14. Would be more interesting if the names of equipment were mentioned. For example, the Giant Stride was pretty common, but its name is only visible in the caption for one of the old photos. Also, FYI, many of the crowded photos of kids sitting astride slides and atop monkey bars are actually group photos. It was common to pose like that for class photos or group photos.

    I read a fascinating article from the Atlantic a few years ago called The Overprotected Kid that there are actually more playground injuries today than pre-1980s because kids had to learn to be more careful when playing on concrete and asphalt. But, at least the injuries on playgrounds today are minor.

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15. It’s fascinating to look at the old playgrounds and how adventurous they were. Today’s playgrounds by comparison seem sterile- safe, but boring as heck.

    Perhaps today’s children are being deprived of important lessons. Sure, we don’t want playgrounds so dangerous they regularly cause injury, but, at the same time, is not life about using your freedom and taking individual risks?

    Should others be held liable for accidents if people CHOOSE to go to the playground? Are we teaching kids that others are responsible for what they do? Even back then was anyone being forced to participate?

    Of course, if you’re a parent it’s understandable to want to keep your kids safe. At the same time, can we really protect kids from every danger or risk? In my view, it is good that playgrounds are safer now but there are drawbacks to not allowing for the freedom of individual risk-taking.

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16. I’m glad I stumbled across this site while searching for something else!
    I’m 73 years old and recognize some of these, although many are from my grandparents time. I spent many happy hours on playground equipment like jungle gyms, swings, teeter-totters, maypoles, and merry-go-rounds.
    One type of merry-go-round (roundabout) was where there was a circular rotating bench with a stationary wheel in the middle. You pulled on the wheel to spin the bench, and boy, could you really spin fast! I remember being thrown off of a merry-go-round many times, and learning how to fall properly to avoid injury.
    Sadly, I never had the chance to play on some of the mega-playgrounds shown.
    Interestingly, I find it somewhat ironic that many people I talk with who are avid Darwinists are also staunchly against any type of playground equipment that could possibly injure a child in any way whatsoever. So much for survival of the fittest.
    Thank you, Click Americana, for creating this very interesting page.

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17. I used to play on a swing set that had two swings that spun around a center pole. Two people would ride and a third would grab one of the swings inner chain and spin the swings by pulling from the center pole. Haven’t seen one of them for decades. Super fun!

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18. To be honest I rarely see kids play on the “modern” playgrounds. They would rather find a nice ditch and play with some bricks and wooden lats than slide down the 5 feet plastic slides twice in a row. And whenever they do use them they use them in their own risky ways – like climbing on the roofs above the slide tops. I’m 20 and I clearly remember being a kid and playing on a super tall climbring structure with my friends and it was absolutely fantastic. They replaced it with a tiny, useless version of itself. Now more kids go play on construction sites, because modern playgrounds offer no stimulation physically or creativity-wise when used “correctly”.

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    1. Definitely agree with you in this!! I’m a bit older than you are but agree completely.

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    2. I agree! My daughter is 19, the city had amazing talk metal jungle gyms she played on at 1 years plus dramatically. Now no kid plays on the low down, uninspiring plastic junk. I was heartbroken that they took away these amazing, inspiring to children, creations of imagination and fitness!, whose idea was this? It happened in about 2018.. I was shocked they removed these huge wonderful inspirations that could be islands, space ships, “my house”, jungles, you name it! My little girl was so healthy, had muscles climbing and swinging and hanging on these things!

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19. How interesting! I’m on a Village council here in the UK and in the process of updating one of our play areas. Many of the items in your list still exist in the UK and Europe! Yes, there are fall limits and specifications for surfaces and safety is very important, but encouraging age appropriate risk taking is still an important part of playground provision. The modern Witches Hat (called the ocean wave here) are really, really popular as are the spinners (we call them Gally Spins)! We are trying see if we can afford a rope jungle gym nearly 10 metres high (33foot?).

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    1. Awesome!! Risk-taking, and their associated skills, are so vital to children’s development. Glad to see they’re still in use somewhere.

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20. Growing up in Kansas in the 60’s and 70’s, most of these pieces were still around. Almost every town or city park had swings, teeter totters, a jungle gym, monkey bars, horizontal bars (for the girls to do knee spins on), one or two or more steel “slippery slides” (what we called them) (and yes, they did get hot!). About half had some kind of spinner. Our grade school playground had a spinner that could go so fast no one could stay on it. The climax to each day’s recess was to see who could stay on the longest – with 4 or 5 kids spinning it! The only accident more serious than a scrape that I ever heard of was someone fell from the top of the slippery slide and broke their arm. One of my favorite stunts was to climb one of the 12′ tall pipes on the swing set and sit on top. And when you were swinging, if you swung too high, you would get this tremendous jolt as the chains slackened and then went taught again as you fell vertically back into the swing seat. Actually, that was great fun too!

    We also learned all about physics while having fun on those playgrounds: inertia, momentum, potential energy, centrifugal force, the effect of gravity on a free body, what happens when two objects collide, the principal that a moving body will tend to continue in a straight line unless some force acts on it, and just how much sand on a hot slippery slide will allow you to go the fastest, etc. etc.!

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    1. I’m from Kansas City, Missouri and like you, I was a child of the 70s and we grew up on the same playground you mention here, and it was such fun, fun! Falling and scraping my knees I would never give back the memories, I felt alive and free! I love your memories.

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21. I remember merry go rounds that would go so fast that when the big kid pushed it around you would vomit like a sprinkler as it went around the spray now hiting the big kid My mom said to him you should have known better , she also would kick off big kids off the swing calling them a swing bully’s at home In playing Superman I would jump off the garage roof when my knee hit me in the nose i learned to keep my knees apart also I did a back flip off the pool I hit the my head on the coping I saw a kid jump from trampoline to trampoline missing the jump short only to jump between the springs ouch you publish stories of dare devil kids and how they survived You can have mine to share let me know I played chicken at the roller rink skating backwards with someone then collide with him because I wasn’t chicken he drove his roller skates over my face My wife was crying I said why are you crying I won !!! As I went to the hospital to stitch up my eye

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22. Those tall metal slides were still around in the ’80s. That’s one reason why we always wore blue jeans when going to the park.

    I remember playing on a ’60s era rocket slide back then too. On this particular one, you entered an oval shaped hole and climed up through the center of the rocket. It was a skinny metal tube with a steel ladder welded to the inside. Once up top, you exited the tube through another oval shaped hole and could walk around a circular platform that went around the outside of the rocket till you got to the slide. Except for a short metal wall surrounding the platform, it was all open on top. A kid could easily climb out and hang off the side (which we sometimes did!) I don’t know how tall it was, but I remember thinking that if I fell off it, I would probably end up breaking something. The slide itself spiraled around the structure and the sliding surface of it looked like 1/2 inch metal tubes welded together. I once took refuge in that structure while having to walk home from school in a snowstorm.

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23. Boomer parents believed it was too dangerous for the kids they raised.

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24. This article was great! I run a memory program for aging seniors and they LOVE to talk about the playgrounds from the old days. They often say with a smile, “I don’t know how we survived.” The heights. The burning slides. They survived and so did the boomers after. And we even drank water from the garden hose.

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25. The most dangerous thing about metal play equipment is that it got scorching hot in the summer — especially the slides. However, we had a solution to the problem; us boys would take our shirts off and slide down on our shirts. Unfortunately that option wasn’t available to the girls…

    Another, more serious problem — then and now — is when play equipment is allowed to fall into disrepair. In the early 90s we lived in a community that had a park with a log playset, and one of the logs had rotted away. One day, when my daughter and some friends were playing, one of the smaller boys fell through the space where the log had been, and his head got stuck. The other kids acted quickly, though, and pulled him up — possibly saving his life. The next week, that piece of play equipment was replaced.

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26. This brings back good and bad memories, grew up in England and then Canada in 50’s and 60’s. My friends and I would swing so high and hard the swing frame would start to come out of the ground. Two pieces of equipment I would avoid was the merry go round, you would all jump on and of course one big kid would just keep it going around and around till you puked! The other was the teeter totter. I was a small kid, and the person at the other end was always heavier than me and would keep me up in the air threatening me that they would jump off and let me bang back down to earth. That happened once almost ended me becoming a women, LOL!. But I survived. Still like a good swing in my 70’s. This was a fun read.

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27. My father fell off a jungle gym in about 1941 and injured his knee. That injury has aggravated him his entire life.

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28. Some chilling ideas for children’s “fun” here! The “Jungle Gym” was still the most common name for the metal apparatus found in parks and school “recess” areas in the 1960s, all metal. We also had the rings and tall swing sets (which were fun) from which most boys would compete to see who could “launch” and fly the farthest. Most areas had that wonderful “tree bark” surface which cushioned the fall but made for really hot & dry conditions. We also had a long metal slide (which got really fast when kids used the wax paper used to wrap sandwiches on it!) and standard pull-up bars. The worst example was in Jr. High when kids all had to climb the wooden pegboard or burlap rope up to the 50 ft ceiling. It was so high that it smelled musty up there! Lots of injuries from falls, and just like the TV shows, if we could walk, the coach would say “walk it off”.

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    1. I remember burlap climbing ropes in gym class. :( Most kids (including myself) couldn’t do it. But there were always one or two jocks who could do it with ease and show off. And there were always those kids who seemed to enjoy getting rope burns when they slid down.

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29. I broke my right arm on a “Witches Hat” when I was 10 or 11 in 1956-57. It was great fun and we learned to hang on. They made kids tough and coordinated and even 10 year Olds knew better than to go down a metal slide when it was 80° outside and in the sun. Perhaps this is the reason the Greatest Generation won WWII… we were tough and not afraid of anything. Today’s playgrounds are just engineered to avoid lawsuits…has nothing to do with exercising the child. Great article! Thanks for the memories.

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30. I remember playing on the Jungle Gym AND ‘Splinter Delivery System,’ but both were miles better than today’s mania for bubble-wrapping your kids and sticking them in front of a TV.

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31. People are wimps now. I see nothing wrong with any of those. I really like the sideways swings.

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32. I was brought up with many of these playground rides, and Kids today that come
    over have the same experience. Down below at my home at the pond area, I built
    a vintage park. Tall Swing, 2 Merry-go-Rounds, Metal Slide, Stage Coach, Teeter
    Totters, and a Global Monkey Bars. Despite one Kid once falling off the top of the
    slide, never had any serious injuries. Just loads of Fun..

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33. haha. fun article! we swung/spun on a swing bob in 1965 Waunakee Wi. a hoot!
    we also played floor hockey on knees swinging lead pipes with all our might.
    glad to get some exercise. Glad playgrounds are safer.

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34. Kids were stronger what a load of crap, it was overprotective adults that removed it for the future kids.

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